


The Space Between the Bullets in Our Firefight

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Federal Bureau of Investigation, First Time, M/M, Supernatural Reverse Big Bang Challenge, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:33:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen’s an FBI agent who doesn’t want to let things like love and family get in the way of his ambitions. It takes getting what he wants to figure what he’s been needing all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [](http://spn-reversebang.livejournal.com/profile)[**spn_reversebang**](http://spn-reversebang.livejournal.com/) and turned out to be the story that exploded, even if I had to contain the explosion somewhat. ;) Thank you to [](http://kasman.livejournal.com/profile)[**kasman**](http://kasman.livejournal.com/) for the last minute beta. Title from Dave Matthews Band.

**2012**

Jensen watched as Toby and Aaron pulled the man out of their jeep, blindfold tied over his eyes, hair hanging over the cloth in sweaty curls, two days of unshaven scruff on his chin. _Son of a bitch,_ Jensen thought. He felt the weight of the gun tucked into the holster at his shoulder, twitched his hand up toward it but forced himself to let his hands hang relaxed at his side. He watched the man stumble forward, battered boots catching on the rocky ground as Toby shoved him ahead. _I'm going to kill him. I'm going to fucking kill him._

~~~

 **2005**

Jensen resisted the urge to glare over his shoulder. He didn't want to give the asshole the pleasure of knowing he was getting to Jensen, and anyway, it would fuck up his form. The Virginia sun was scorching above him, the blacktop hot under his hands, humid air all but boiling around him, but he kept to the rhythm he'd set for his push-ups. The heat of the ground was just added motivation to keep his body straight, rigid, nothing touching the ground other than his palms and the toes of his sneakers. He'd sweated through his FBI-issued t-shirt long before, but he was almost done. He kept his gaze on the bottle of water waiting for him and in his head chanted his mantra of _fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you_.

Fucking Morgan. He hadn't seemed like what Jensen expected out of an academy trainer when he strolled into the room where they'd all assembled that first day, looking like he'd just rolled out of bed, sunglasses on his head, hands in his pockets. But that casual act fell away the minute they got out on the grounds for physical training, and Jensen felt like he couldn't avoid the man's gaze.

He finished the fucking push-ups, drank down his bottle of water, crushing the plastic in his hand as he emptied it, and all the time he could feel Jeff's eyes on his back. Jensen kept his mouth shut the rest of the day, his jaw tight and sore. He wasn't some 18 year-old kid in basic training. He was 27 years old. He had five years’ experience with the Dallas PD, one in uniform and four as a detective. He had a Masters in Criminal Justice that he’d earned, going to school part-time during those four years with a detective shield. He understood that joining the FBI meant starting from scratch, letting the Bureau break him down and rebuild him just the way they wanted but, _Jesus_ , it felt like he could do nothing right with this guy.

The gaze that he'd initially taken for sleepy, lazy, was more like the hooded stare of some bird of prey, and the man's growling voice followed him across the grounds, burrowing itself into his brain. When Jensen snapped, he didn't even care about his career anymore. He didn't care if he got kicked out of the Academy training program, bounced back to the Dallas PD where he could work the streets until he had enough years to retire, the way his father had. Giving up his dream was worth the feel of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's shirt in his hand, his own voice the one raised, for once.

"I'm giving you everything I have. Every fucking thing I have, _sir_ , and if that's not good enough for you then just wash me out. Pull the trigger. Just get the fuck off my back." Jensen paused a moment before adding, "Sir."

Jensen stumbled back, his chest heaving, his hands trembling with adrenaline, muscles tight where his fingers were still wrapped up in the fabric of Morgan's shirt. He forced his fingers to relax, one by one, until his hand dropped back to his side. He didn't drop his gaze though, kept his eyes locked with Morgan's. The skin next to those eyes crinkled into sun-worn crows’ feet, and Morgan smiled. The son of a bitch smiled. Jensen blinked, frowned.

"I knew there was something to you other than all the southern gentleman bullshit you've been shoveling the past couple of weeks." Morgan didn't move to smooth down the rumpled cotton of his shirt, looked like he was just as comfortable either way. He stepped forward, closing the gap between them again. "The reason I'm on your back?" His voice was low, deeper than usual, but quiet, intense. "You're the best one out here. You're not going to end up sitting behind a desk, combing through financials or listening to surveillance your whole career. You're going to find yourself in some real shit one of these days, and I want you to be prepared. If you can't take this piddly ass harassment," Morgan raised his eyebrows and shook his head once, "you're better off washing yourself out. Get on a plane home. Solve a new drug dealer homicide every week. Save us all the time and money spent training you, and the grief of burying you."

Jensen stood his ground, Morgan an inch away from him, the man's scent in his nose. He felt the traces of adrenaline leaking out through his body, felt like stepping back, sitting down, breathing cool air until he could figure out what the hell he should do. He closed his eyes for a second, just a second, and then he knew what came next.

"I'd like to get back to training, sir."

Morgan rocked back on his heels, a hint of a satisfied smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Good. Hit the track. Two miles."

Rebellion rose back up inside Jensen--they'd just finished on the track, the rest of his class was heading inside to hit the cafeteria. But it was a challenge, and Jensen would be damned if he gave Morgan the pleasure of making him give in. "Yes, sir," he growled.

Before Jensen had finished his first half-mile, he heard footsteps behind him on the track, and when he looked back it was Morgan. Morgan, in shorts and a t-shirt, sneakers instead of his usual scuffed black shoes. "This a race?" Jensen asked.

"Nope." Morgan didn't talk any more, just fell into pace next to Jensen. He stayed there, matching his footfalls to Jensen's, no matter how Jensen sped up or slowed down, until the two miles were up. When they stood next to each other in the gray dusk, both of them bent over catching their breath, Jensen decided that maybe Morgan wasn't such a complete asshole after all.

~~~

 **2006**

Seattle wasn't bad, not entirely. The cold made him miss home, made even the sticky Virginia weather seem worth yearning for, but the agents in his department didn't abuse his probationary status too badly. Sure, he took more than his share of trips to pick up coffee, but at least he never had to go far. And even if Seattle hadn't been one of his top choices when it came to field offices, he'd been assigned to the division he'd been aiming for from the time he filled out that application back in Dallas--Domestic Terrorism.

Of course, he was assigned to a team focused on an environmentalist group, and Jensen was about 95% sure they weren't planning anything more than minor property damage--nuisance crime, not terrorism. Still, an assignment was an assignment, and Jensen knew he was in no place to complain. He was on a stakeout with Agent Salabsky, keeping a watch with the binoculars while she fiddled with the audio equipment, trying to find a way to get a signal in through the tiny windows of the old warehouse where the group was meeting.

"So, who did you have training you at Quantico?"

"Huh?"

"Just curious who's still rattling around there. You have Jackson for PT?"

"Nah, we had Morgan." Jensen's legs felt sore just thinking about all those miles on the track, his pecs aching from all those push-ups. "Fucking Morgan," he muttered with little heat.

"Seriously? Jeff Morgan?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I heard a rumor he got assigned to the Academy, but I didn't think it was true. He really must have pissed somebody off for that."

"Pissed who off?"

"Who the hell knows. One of the Assistant Directors, probably. Last time they had it in for him he ended up assigned to the field office in North Dakota, tracking statewide fertilizer purchases or something. Mountains of horse shit, cow shit, I don't know."

"What did he do to earn that?" Jensen had a vivid image of Morgan, standing at the foot of a mountain of shit ten times his height. In Jensen's head, he was looking at it the same way he'd looked at Jensen when he wasn't working up to Morgan's impossibly high standards. Which was most of the time.

"He's one of those guys who think the rules don't apply to them. I don't know all the details, but I worked with a guy back in Florida, said Morgan was sharp in the field but if an order came through he didn't agree with..." She shrugged. "Not a career path I recommend, Probie."

"Yeah, no shit. Why don't they just fire him?"

"My guess is that when he's not playing loose cannon? He must be one of the best."

"Must be."

Just then, Salabsky got a snippet of audio, heard the group talking about guns, targeting a Weyerhauser board meeting the next day. Then it was all action--warrants, strategy, back-up--and they burst into the warehouse to find the group arming themselves. With super-soaker water guns full of red Kool-Aid. His suit was never going to be the same.

Jensen couldn't wait to get the hell out of Seattle.

~~~

 **2010**

Jensen pulled into the parking lot of the Los Angeles field office for the first time, feeling shamefully relieved to be away from the Dallas office. After spending a couple years in Seattle, Jensen had fought for a transfer to Dallas, cashed in a couple of favors he was owed to make it happen. In his head, the assignment was going to be ideal. He'd be near his family, and even if he'd be busy with work most of the time at least he'd be able to stay close with his brother and sister, see his nephews grow up, help his parents out if they needed it. And he knew the landscape in Dallas, both literally and figuratively; he had contacts in local law enforcement and knowledge of organized crime in the region.

He thought that he would do good work and be able to make the area safer for his family as well as everybody else, and he wasn't entirely wrong. He found himself being respected more as an agent since he wasn't the ex-probie in his co-workers' minds, and his local contacts were helpful once he got his ex-partner and their captain to stop giving him the cold shoulder for going fed. The work was good, but Jensen couldn't figure out how to balance that with the rest of his life--not in Dallas.

He could see a path available to him--stay in the Dallas office, buy a house, work his way up, be a good son and brother and uncle. It was a good path, an admirable path, and it made Jensen feel like he was wearing a straitjacket. In Dallas, every case they worked felt intensely personal. They tracked a local hate group working on an embryonic plan to bomb a shopping mall, and he wanted to tell his sister and his mother to never go shopping again, tell his brother to hole up inside with his children, seal the windows with duct tape. And every family birthday party he attended, every cookout and church play, felt like wasted time, time that would be better spent at work.

And then he met Matt. Jensen hadn't exactly hidden his sexuality from the Bureau, and his parents had known since they caught him making out with his "study partner" in his bedroom in tenth grade. There had been a lot of yelling for a few days, a lot of silence around the issue for a few years, but in the middle of his junior year of college his mother sent Jensen a letter. She didn't say much, just that she and Jensen's father would be happy if Jensen asked his boyfriend to come visit sometime during winter break. Of course, they'd insisted that Kevin sleep on the pull-out bed in the living room, but they'd done the same thing when Josh's college girlfriend visited a few years earlier.

Jensen and Kevin broke up half-way through senior year, and Jensen hadn't met anybody since then with whom he wanted to get serious, anybody who made him want a relationship rather than just a date or a fuck now and then. He knew it was cheesy to say that his work was his passion, but the thought of stopping the assholes who wanted to hurt his _home_ , catching them and putting them away where they couldn't carry out their plans? It was a better rush than anything he could get in bed.

Then he met Matt. It was a set-up, plain and simple. He went to his nephew's birthday party, and along with the expected family and friends-of-family who were always at those parties was one of his sister-in-law's co-workers, another teacher from her school. Laurie introduced them with an awkward degree of fanfare and then left them alone, assigned to the task of keeping an eye on how many kids were in the rented bouncy castle together. Matt was cute, on the skinny side compared to the guys who usually caught Jensen's eye, but under the afternoon sun his eyes were a gorgeous clear blue. He was smart and funny, and those few hours at the party left Jensen wanting more.

Dinner and an evening spent listening to some jazz band led them back to Jensen's apartment, and when Jensen woke in the morning he was surprised to find that what he still wanted was _more_. A few months later, Jensen found himself in a relationship. And it was great--Matt was sexy as hell, covered in wiry muscle underneath his skinny jeans, and he didn't begrudge the time and attention Jensen gave to his work. They went on vacation together and they went to each other's work holiday parties, and Jensen was starting to get the impression that moving in together would be the next step. His mother even said something about hoping for another grandchild, and that thought filled Jensen with a kind of terror that well-armed White Pride members could never invoke.

It was that path again--keep working his way up in the Dallas office, buy a house with Matt, adopt a baby from China or somewhere, focus his energy on family and stability, grow old without _really_ doing anything more than what was expected. It sounded like a nice life, a normal life. It felt like a box where Jensen would die slowly, stifled and cold. He found himself at work, trying to focus on the problems in front of him but distracted alternately by plans for spending time with Matt and his family and by frustration that this perfect life wasn't what he'd dreamt of when he left the police department and struggled through FBI training.

Jensen put in for a transfer to the LA Domestic Terrorism division, and that illusion of a perfect life he'd been living shattered apart. Matt thought he was scared of commitment, and he was wrong in that Jensen wasn't motivated by the desire to be with anybody else, but the kind of commitment Matt ultimately wanted absolutely was terrifying, and Jensen took his lumps. He sold or donated most of his crappy furniture, gave his TV to Josh, and arranged to rent a furnished apartment in LA. He left Dallas and left Matt's anger and his family's disappointment behind him.

Jensen had met most of the members of his new team, either in person or long-distance, and the only complication he saw going in was that the last person to join the team was Jeff Morgan, former academy trainer and rumored loose cannon. He'd run into Morgan a couple times since the academy, and the man was sharp, knew his shit, but Jensen didn't know if he was ever going to feel comfortable with him. He wasn't worried about the academy business, that was ancient history, but no matter how Morgan had managed to get himself back into the Bureau's good graces Jensen couldn't trust his recklessness. He believed in taking risks--hell, he'd left Dallas so that he could be more free to take risks himself--but it was always calculated, and he didn't like the idea of working on a team with somebody he couldn't trust.

As Jensen walked through the office to check in with Supervisory Special Agent Whitfield, he saw the rest of the team checking him out not-so-slyly. Morgan, leaning back in his desk chair with that deceptive casualness. Chris Kane, who'd been assigned to Dallas previously and left shortly after Jensen transferred in. Sam Ferris, the Senior Special Agent of the team, a woman whom Jensen had never worked with, but by reputation she was tough and ruthless but controlled, at least during working hours. And some tall guy, lanky but broad-shouldered, who looked young enough that he was probably a Probationary Agent.

The transition from New Guy to a regular team member ended up being relatively painless; Ferris and Kane were both sharp as hell and professional, even if he got the impression that both of them liked to get a little rowdy after-hours. SSA Whitfield didn't micromanage the team, but managed to keep them on task by force of personality. The probie, Padalecki, was kind of ridiculously eager, but Jensen felt instantly comfortable with him. He reminded Jensen of the aspects of home, of Texas, that were separate from the terrible distractions of family and relationships. Morgan...Morgan was a thorn in his side.

The man was good at his job, and he seemed to be on a kick of playing by the rules to keep in his supervisor’s good graces; Jensen thought he might have decided he actually wanted to rise above the rank of Special Agent before he hit retirement age. But he was distracting in a way that Jensen couldn't quite pin down, and both the distraction and the uncertainty were pissing Jensen off by the time he'd been on the team for a month. Morgan had started off harassing Jensen some about the Academy days but cut it out when Jensen refused to give him the reaction he was looking for--not that Jensen knew quite what the desired reaction had been. Morgan's teasing hadn't been mean-spirited, hadn't felt like bullying, which he would have dealt with head-on rather than passively.

In any case, Morgan laid off the blast from the past and proceeded to just loom at the edges of Jensen's field of vision, a shadow Jensen could feel on him all the time, even though Morgan wasn't doing anything different from the rest of the team. It was a mystery, but not the kind that Jensen knew how to investigate. When they weren't busy with cases, Jensen distracted himself by hanging out with the probie, watching Jared eat through mountains of food at each of the "awesome" restaurants he insisted that Jensen check out with him. One day, in between courses at a barbecue joint that Jensen had to admit was damn good, Jared asked, "So, what's the deal with you and Morgan?"

"What do you mean?" Jensen hadn't thought he'd let his discomfort with Morgan interfere with their work.

"I don't know, half the time you act like he doesn't exist, and the rest of the time you're either watching him like he's a suspect under surveillance or challenging every word he says. And Morgan, he watches you, too, though he covers it a little better. So, what did he do to you?"

Jensen shook his head; probies weren't supposed to be so perceptive. Kid should go into profiling. "He trained me, that's what. At the Academy. It's not really that, though. I don't trust him, and sometimes I don't think he takes this job seriously enough."

"Huh." Jared stuck a piece of bread in his mouth and chewed, visibly trying to figure out his response. "I don't know, man, he seems pretty serious to me. You should see him on the b-ball court; he's an animal."

"You two play _basketball_ together?" Jensen knew his incredulity was plain on his face, but he didn't care.

"Yeah, we play one-on-one in the gym in the basement, usually Tuesday nights if there's nothing else going on. He figured out we'd both played in high school and challenged me, and high school might've been a lot more recent for me, but damn. It's fun, a change of pace, you know?"

"I played in high school, too, but the last thing I want to do is spend extra time with Morgan."

"I hear you, man," Jared replied, nodding like he didn't really understand but didn't really care either.

A few weeks later, Tuesday turned out to be a bad day for the team. What was supposed to be a simple operation ended with one of the suspects on the loose, Padalecki in a cast with a broken wrist, and Jensen furious with Morgan even though he logically knew that it wasn't really any one person's fault. Their intel had been missing some key pieces of information, and Jensen couldn't help but hone in on Morgan--especially when Jared, the agent who'd ultimately let the suspect slip past him, was pale and loopy on pain meds. Kane was giving the probie a ride home from the ER, and from his spot in the passenger seat he tugged on Jensen's sleeve, like a sleepy toddler.

"Hey," he slurred. "Hey, go play b-ball with Jeff tonight."

"Yeah, I don't think so kid."

"Please? Pleeeeeease?" Padalecki wheedled, seeming more like a little kid than ever, and Jensen knew Jared would be embarrassed if he remembered this when the drugs wore off. Still, it was impossible to resist him.

"Fine. Okay. Fine."

"Awesome." Jared smiled and closed his eyes. Jensen didn't envy Kane the task of getting Jared into his apartment on the other end of the drive.

Jensen was tempted to break his promise and just go home, but he needed to wrap up some paperwork back at the office, and the possibility of bouncing a basketball off Morgan's face had undeniable appeal. Morgan was at his desk when Jensen got there, his tie half-undone and his shirt wrinkled, jacket flung over the divider between his desk and Ferris's.

"Hey," Jensen said as he sat down at his own desk.

Morgan looked up, his hooded eyes alert. "What?" He sounded wary and tired, like he was ready for whatever fight he expected from Jensen but didn't feel like dealing with it."

"Nothing." Jensen remembered Jared's glassy, pleading eyes and sighed. "Padalecki made me promise to play basketball with you tonight."

"Jesus, that kid." Morgan dropped his chin to his chest and tilted his head like he was stretching out his neck. "I'll tell him you kept your promise if you want to just do your paperwork and head home."

"Oh no, I'm not lying. Neither one of us is getting out of this. And I do have gym clothes here."

"Yeah, I've seen you on the elliptical and the weights."

"Okay, well--" Jensen paused, feeling oddly embarrassed, then shook it off. "Okay, how about in an hour? Should be enough time for us to get our work done but not enough time to fall asleep at our desks."

"Deal."

Morgan started working on his computer then, and Jensen followed suit. Shortly before the hour was up, Jensen headed down to the locker room to change into his shorts, t-shirt and sneakers and went into the room that held the small basketball court. The whole gym area was nearly deserted, just a couple of women on cardio equipment. Jensen grabbed a basketball and started dribbling it, passing the ball from hand to hand to get himself warmed up. He and Josh had made a habit of playing pickup games in Josh's driveway, but their competition had been more casual than fierce, and Jensen hadn't played at all since moving to LA.

When Jeff came through the door and stepped onto the court, wearing black shorts and a Seattle Redhawks t-shirt, his eyes went wide for a moment before he settled back into his usual pretend-casual stance. "You ready to get your ass beat, kid?"

"Don't count your chickens, old man."

Jeff nodded. "Let's do it." He grabbed the ball and exploded into action, driving hard toward the basket. Jensen was shocked for a second, surprised by Morgan's fierceness despite Jared's description of him as an animal on the court. Then he let his energy match Morgan's; he wasn't about to be beaten without a fight.

A fight was what it felt like, more than a game. Jensen snatched the ball out of the air, Jeff bullied his way into Jensen's space to steal it back. Jensen slammed his chest into Morgan's as he blocked a shot right under the net, and Morgan rammed his hip into Jensen's, knocking Jensen away from the ball. When Jensen jumped up into Morgan's space again, Morgan held onto the ball but stumbled back and landed on his ass, sweating and breathing hard on the glossy wood floor. He glared at Jensen and then jumped back to his feet, more nimbly than Jensen would've expected.

Then he was in Jensen's face, pushing Jensen back against the painted cinderblock wall, shoving the ball into Jensen's chest. "What's your fucking problem?" Morgan growled, his voice low and angry and tight, and Jensen felt his cock harden, uncomfortable in his jockstrap. His mind was whirling. _This, this is why Morgan got to him the way he did?_

"You." High on adrenaline, reckless like he never liked to be, Jensen knocked the ball out of Morgan's hands, and as the ball bounced across the floor he grabbed Morgan's shoulder's and kissed him. Nowhere near gentle, he jammed his lips against Morgan's, and when he felt Morgan's mouth open against his, he pushed his tongue in--penetrating, claiming. Morgan pushed back, slipping his tongue in against Jensen's and exploring Jensen's mouth like he was mapping out territory. His hips pushed against Jensen's, and the hard line of his cock made it obvious he was as out of control as Jensen, as ready. They pulled apart, both of them panting hard, glaring at each other in challenge and want.

Jensen took off for the locker room, looked around to make sure it was empty, and after Morgan came slamming through the door Jensen flipped the lock. Morgan pushed Jensen back against a row of lockers, leaning in for another bruising kiss, the sharp bite of his teeth on Jensen's lip only making Jensen hotter, harder. He pushed his hips out against Morgan's, and Morgan sank to his knees, pulling down Jensen's shorts and jock in one motion.

His mouth on Jensen's cock was warm and wet, the occasional scrape of teeth keeping him on edge. Jensen pushed his cock up into Morgan's face, felt himself balanced between the balls of his feet braced on the floor and his shoulder blades digging into the lockers behind him. He closed his eyes and let the driving beat of his heart, the hurricane of breath in his chest, carry him over the edge until he came, Morgan's mouth tight around him until he sank back onto his heels and leaned his whole back into the lockers.

"Fuck," Jensen panted. He opened his eyes to see Morgan still on the floor, his hard cock tenting his shorts between his spread knees, his eyes dark and full of need. "Fuck."

"Gimme a second." Morgan murmured. He stood and yanked open his locker, groped around inside before slamming the locker closed again. When he turned around, he had a condom held between his fingers. "Yeah?"

Jensen had a disturbing thought and held up his hand. "You're not fucking the probie are you?"

"Hell no. I use my gym bag for other things, too. Nothing wrong with being prepared."

"Nothing at all. And yeah, fuck yeah." Jensen stepped out of the shorts pooled around his feet and pulled off his shirt as he walked over to Morgan. He grabbed a handful of Morgan's shirt, remembering in a flash doing the same thing back at the academy. "But you're not fucking me wearing a shirt for this crappy team."

Morgan glared back, but he complied, yanking the shirt up over his head. He pushed his shorts down then, revealing a long, thick cock, rising up from a thatch of dark hair just slightly salted with gray. Jensen felt himself start to go hard again, and Morgan grinned. "Come here." He grabbed Jensen's arms and pulled him in, kissing him hard again and then shoving him away, turning him around. Jensen played the game, let himself be manhandled. He dropped to his knees in front of the changing bench, his ass in the air, his chest on the narrow wooden bench, and then Morgan's hands were on his hips, his ass.

Jensen gasped as Morgan's slicked thumb slipped inside him, opening him up before he grabbed Jensen's hips with both hands and pushed inside, thick pressure and bright pain and so, so good. Morgan rocked against him, and Jensen grabbed the sides of the bench with his hands, pushing back against Morgan's thrusts. Morgan grunted out ragged moans behind him, and Jensen was fully hard again, aching to wrap a hand around his cock but sure that if he let go of the bench they'd both go sprawling. Then Morgan's hand was on him, jerking him off to the rhythm of their thrusts, and Jensen came again, spurting onto the floor as Morgan shuddered above him, his weight leaning more heavily onto Jensen's back.

Jensen's arms quivered, too worn out to hold them both up, and then they did tumble down in a jumble of sweaty limbs. The cold tile floor felt good against Jensen's overheated skin, and when he opened his eyes he saw Morgan looking at him with a soft expression he'd never seen before. " _God_ , Morgan," Jensen panted, his brain not functioning well enough to come up with anything more than that.

Morgan laughed, a rough scrape of air through his throat. "You think maybe you could call me Jeff?"

Jensen laughed too, sprawled on his back on the locker room floor. He felt more relaxed than he had since he left Dallas.

It didn't make any sense to Jensen, he couldn't justify it even to himself, but after that night in the gym he started finding himself trusting Jeff, stopped feeling chafed by the feeling of Jeff's eyes on him. He planned to keep it a one-time thing, refused to play basketball with Jeff again, even though the probie wouldn't be able to play for a month at least. But something about Jeff pulled at him with the gravitational force of a small planet, and before Jared was out of his cast Jensen found himself in Jeff's bed. And then in his own bed with Jeff. And then in the men's room at a bar, hoping like hell they didn't get arrested because that would blow the concept of keeping it from the team right out of the water.

The sex was good--beyond good--but Jensen wasn't about to make the mistake he'd made in Dallas. Matt had been distracting enough, and Jensen could only imagine how that distraction would increase exponentially with the two of them working together if he let their relationship be about anything other than sex. Jensen liked rules, and the rules he set without words were no romance, no sleeping over, no going to restaurants or cooking dinner at home. They fucked, sometimes drank, and it had nothing to do with work. Nothing to do with family or the future, just living in the moment, and as far as Jensen was concerned that was all it could ever be.

~~~

 **2011**

Jensen rolled away from Jeff, stripping the condom off and dropping it in the trashcan by the bed. He sat on the side of the bed, bent over with his elbows on his knees, trying to get his breathing back to normal so he could get dressed and take off for his apartment.

"So, you're taking some vacation time this week?" Jeff's voice startled Jensen; usually they talked before sex, not after.

"Uh, yeah." Jensen swung his legs around onto the bed again so that he could face Jeff, even if Jeff wasn't facing him. "My little sister's getting married, so I need to go back to Dallas for the whole spectacle of heterosexual bliss."

Jeff was quiet for a moment, and in the dimness of the room Jensen thought that maybe he'd fallen asleep. "You know," he said then, still facing the other side of the room, "most people take a date to a wedding. And sometimes I wish it could be like that with us."

"Like what?" Jensen felt a cold knot in his belly, where everything had so recently been warm and relaxed.

"Like dating instead of just fucking. Like going out to eat where we can see each other and talk rather than drinking in dark bars with a crush of other people and noise drowning out everything else." Jeff snorted out a quiet laugh. "Like sleeping together, rather than one of us creeping out like a whore."

"I don't understand where this is coming from." Jensen's ears were ringing, but he kept his voice steady. "I'm not ashamed of anything, but we work together, and the job is _important_. We can't afford to be _boyfriends_."

Jeff sat up then, turned around to face Jensen. "I've been thinking about some things. I mean, I'm 45, maybe it's a midlife crisis but I've been thinking about my goddamn life, about what I want. And you know what I figured out that I want?"

"Another dog?"

"Fuck you," Jeff snapped. "I want somebody to wake up with in the morning. I want somebody to go on vacation with and somebody to help me take care of the dog I _do_ have. I want somebody I'm allowed to love for real, rather than just somebody I can fuck when it's convenient for the both of us. And the kicker, the really great part--" Jeff cut himself off, looking like he'd surprised himself with the volume of his own voice, and then started again just above a whisper, "is that what I really want is for that person to be you."

Jensen scrambled backwards off the bed to stand on shaky legs. "That's not--I thought what we had going here was good, but what you're talking about, this whole pristine white picket fence fantasy? That is _not_ what I've been working towards for the last ten years of my life. That's for...someday, maybe. For now there's work to do."

"What, are you worried about coming out?"

"Fuck you, I'm not _in_. Most of the agents I worked with back in Dallas knew I was dating a guy. Whitfield knows. Padalecki knows. A lot of people know. But that doesn't mean I think it's okay to openly have a relationship with somebody on my team."

"Screw the team," Jeff growled. "I'll quit the FBI, go work for another agency or in the private sector, I don't give a shit. I've had plenty of offers."

Jensen grabbed his underwear and pants from the floor and pulled them on, his movements jerky and harsh. "If you do that, if you quit the team, I don't want anything to do with you. If you put this personal shit over the work we do, then forget about anything between us, much less your little happy couple fantasy." Jensen shoved his feet into his shoes, stuffed his socks in his pocket, and picked up his shirt. "I'm out of here. I'll see you when I get back from Dallas."

Jeff stood up, naked and terribly vulnerable looking in the middle of the room. "Jensen." The word was full of pleading, and Jensen closed his eyes and turned around. As he hurried through the house, pulling his shirt on as he walked, Jensen heard Jeff calling his name again, again. He slammed the door behind him and didn't look back.

~~~

Six days after walking away from Jeff's bed--probably forever--Jensen pulled his camo-painted Jeep up in front of the bar and eyed it up. It was little more than a tin shack, stuck on the edge of a shitty little town in Arizona. He looked down at himself--clothing vaguely military-surplus style and well-worn, a semi-automatic Glock as clearly unconcealed in a shoulder harness as the converted automatic rifle was in the rack behind his head, knife strapped to his right boot. He ran a hand over his newly buzz-cut hair and walked into the bar.

He felt eyes on him as he walked through the door and carefully ignored them. He sat at a booth, ordered a beer, and perused the laminated menu while he kept his ears open for movement around him. He was only halfway through the beer and still waiting for his burger when a man walked over to stand next to his table. Jensen looked up and kept his face devoid of expression to keep from showing any hint of recognition--this was the man he'd been hoping to run into. White male, 43 years old, 5'10", 180 lbs. Calvin DePew, leader of the Sons of American Freedom. Racist. Xenophobe. Probable terrorist.

"Hey buddy, you just get out of the Army or something?"

"Hell no," Jensen sneered. "Sorry, but I'm not exactly interested in taking orders from the so-called Commander-in-Chief or any of those other assholes in Washington."

"I hear you, brother."

Jensen tamped down on his irritation, the idea that this piece of crap was any brother of his. But this was what he'd wanted--to go undercover, get in the thick of it, get something _done_. Jensen tipped his chin at the seat across from him. "You wanna take a load off?"

DePew slid into the booth, leaning back and sprawling his legs out under the table. Jensen knew DePew had a gun tucked into the back of his pants, probably another in an ankle holster under his dusty jeans. At least two of the other men in the bar were with him, and according to the intel he'd been given, the bartender was on their payroll, too. "So, you're not fighting for this fucked up country. You fighting for anybody else?"

Jensen shrugged, took a long pull on his beer. "I was, but I'm not gonna follow anybody who's not _worth_ following, you know? Last group I was with, the CO was weak, just wanted to hang around taking pot-shots at Mexicans coming over the border. As if that's gonna do any good. I'm looking to get some real shit done, something that'll make a difference." Jensen channeled the truth of his ambitions, even if the implication of what he was saying was enough to make him feel sick. "Something to make the fucking sheep around us _see_."

"Well, hell." DePew grinned and sat up, clasping his hands and leaning his elbows on the table. "I might have an opening for just that kind of guy."

~~~


	2. RPS fic: The Space Between the Bullets in Our Firefight (NC-17) Jensen/Jeff (2/2)

**2012**

Jeff leaned over his computer, trying to stretch out the tension in his back, then sat up and took another long drink of coffee. It wasn't exactly hot anymore, but the caffeine still did the job. Jeff could feel his hand shaking a little around the mug, knew he'd been pushing himself too hard, but not knowing where Jensen had disappeared to was making him crazy. Jensen had been undercover for almost eight months, and Jeff had gone from being pissed that Jensen took off on him like that, to being determined to transfer out of the LA office, if not the Bureau itself, as soon as Jensen got back from the assignment, to worried like crazy when Jensen dropped off the radar.

That Monday after his fight with Jensen, he had come in to work knowing that things would be awkward, hoping he could find a way to smooth it out, only to find Jensen's desk cleared of everything personal. SSA Whitfield called the team into a meeting before they could all get their first cup of coffee and made the announcement: Jensen had taken an undercover assignment, an attempt to infiltrate a militia group in Arizona. Whitfield explained that Jensen was going deep undercover, no direct contact with his handlers or anybody on the outside, because these sons of bitches were paranoid and smart.

The Bureau would be working with the military to maintain satellite surveillance of the militia's desert compound, and another agent was already undercover, working at a gas station near the compound--at least as near as anything was out there. Jensen could communicate with his handlers through that agent in case of emergency, but otherwise he'd just be showing his face as often as he could. The goal for the operation was for Jensen to stay undercover long enough to make a move on whatever endgame they had in sight, and then contact his handlers and bring men and dogs and helicopters in to shut the whole thing down.

Jeff had seethed with anger, his stomach, his chest, his head, everything so full of the emotion that he'd claimed a migraine, went home to pace in privacy. As much as he'd been shocked at the news, some part of him knew that this was just the kind of opportunity Jensen had been waiting for. The fact that it materialized just when Jensen had every reason to want to get out of town instead of dealing with Jeff was just icing on the cake. Jeff gave himself that day to feel the rage and the abandonment and the fear, and the next day he buttoned it all down and went back to work.

Padalecki had been promoted out of probationary status, so a new probie named Hodge was brought in to round out the team. Jeff tried not to get too invested in the kid. He did his job, and he sent feelers out to other offices so that he could have somewhere to transfer to once Jensen wrapped up his undercover assignment. Jeff wanted to hear that Jensen was home, that he was safe, and then he never wanted to see Jensen again.

And then, as it always does, the anger faded. The undercurrent of fear for Jensen's safety, however, never subsided. Jeff called in a few favors and got one of Jensen's handlers to keep him apprised of the situation; he didn't hear much from the woman, but no news was relatively good news in Jensen's situation. Jeff also figured out where the compound was located and kept an eye on the satellite images himself. There wasn't much to see, but it was comforting, somehow, to see the building where Jensen had most likely been when the image was taken, to put his finger on it on the screen. He was becoming a complete fucking sap, and he blamed the whole thing on Jensen.

He still kept his feelers out for transfer possibilities, but he was starting to feel like even if he ultimately transferred out he still wanted to see Jensen, at least give him a welcome home hug, even if that had to be it for them. When Padalecki pestered him, trying to get him to talk about his feelings or whatever, Jeff told him that he didn't give a shit about what Jensen chose to do. They both knew he was a liar.

Just over seven months into the undercover operation, Jensen dropped off the map. The whole damn militia group disappeared like a apparition between one satellite image and the next. Their concrete box of a compound was still there, locked up tight as usual but totally empty according to scans of the building. The agent undercover in the town had no idea what happened, and if anybody else in town knew they weren't saying a word. The whole group, and no doubt their extensive collection of weapons and ammunition, had vanished off the map like some kind of Roanoke Colony.

Jeff had no official authority to be investigating the matter, but nobody stopped him from pursuing it on his own time. He often sat at his desk late into the night, staring at the monitor, scrolling through satellite images from all over the southwest, searching for traces of the group somewhere out in the desert. But when a break in the case finally came across Jeff's desk, it was a total surprise. The agents assigned to the operation turned up a witness who saw the group at a small airport just outside LA; several men and a significant amount of cargo departed the airport on a private jet less than two days after they disappeared from Arizona. There was no record of where the flight was headed, and just like in Arizona no amount of questioning could get anybody to admit anything they might have known.

For all that Jeff could tell, the agents responsible for finding Jensen were just sitting on their collective asses, waiting for the group to show back up on their radar, and that was just not something Jeff could accept. Even if Jensen didn't want to be with him, Jeff couldn't stop thinking about the possibility that Jensen had been made as a federal agent, that he was dead already. He had waited, sick and nervous, as ground scanners and corpse-sniffing dogs searched the area of the compound, but even when nothing turned up Jeff knew it was no guarantee of Jensen's safety. He could be anywhere, dead or alive or somewhere in between, and the reality of that made the coffee in Jeff's gut churn.

Jeff hit the streets after that. Cumulatively, he'd worked in the LA office for six years, and he knew a hell of a lot of people. He'd been on the Human Trafficking team before the unauthorized operation that got him exiled to the Academy, and he dug up some his old contacts from those days and hit them up for information. Hit them hard, when necessary. Finally he got the piece of information that was as startling as the idea of Jensen being in LA after disappearing from Arizona. It was one word: Hawaii.

He couldn't work out their location in the islands, couldn't even figure out exactly how they got there other than the fact that it started with a private jet and likely ended with a boat or a helicopter, if not both. These particular animals knew how to cover their tracks well, and after scouring more satellite images--of Hawaii this time, green and blue instead of brown and red--Jeff's best guess was that the group had set up a base of operations in the rainforest where the thick tree cover would hide their location and movements. He took the information and his suspicions to the powers that be, but his witness didn't exactly meet their definition of credible. He fought for his plan of taking a team to the islands immediately, fought hard enough that SSA Whitfield had to threaten him with OPR if he didn't back down, but the end result was crap. They'd look into the intel and work on verifying the information through a credible source. They'd reach out to the Honolulu field office.

Jeff left that meeting and stormed out of the office. In the parking garage, inside his truck, he hung onto the wheel and wrestled down his fear and worry. He knew-- _knew_ \--that the intel was correct, that Jensen was in the middle of some goddamn rainforest with a militia full of intelligent sociopaths. Jeff had trusted his instincts for a long time, and even if doing so sometimes put him on the shit list as far as the Bureau was concerned he didn't regret a single thing he'd done following that certainty in his head. Just as surely, he knew that Jensen was in serious trouble, or would be very soon.

He thought about what the Bureau wanted him to do: stick to his own job responsibilities and wait for somebody to come and tell him that Special Agent Ackles, _sadly_ , had been killed. His gut was telling him to get on the next flight to Hawaii, but his head knew that without any more specific intel he'd be useless there. If he went against the instructions of his superiors, he knew he'd most likely be fired, but he wasn't planning anything that could realistically get him brought up on charges. The career he didn't really care about anymore weighed against the possibility of saving Jensen's life; Jeff tore through the parking garage with his tires screeching on the pavement.

Later that day, when he had his hand on the throat of his dirtbag witness, Jeff amended his evaluation of the risk he was taking: he was opening himself up to low level charges, maybe, but he didn't think the twitchy son of a bitch in front of him was likely to go running to report the altercation to anybody with a badge. "Listen, Nick, I know that you know how to get in touch with the Sons of American Freedom," Jeff growled. "And you know damn well that I know how to _hurt_ you. So how about you cough up the information before I make sure you don't do much more than cough for the near future?"

Nick glared at him but then went limp against the brick wall behind him. Jeff loosened his grip just enough to let a little more air through. Reluctantly, the man described what he knew about the network the militia had set up to move more guns and supplies into their base in Hawaii--militia members working at the shipping terminal in Honolulu--and that was all Jeff needed. He stuffed a pair of fifties into the pocket of Nick's filthy t-shirt, jumped back in his truck, and took off for the airport. He poked at his phone at every stoplight and slowdown until he found the flight that would get him to Hawaii the earliest.

Putting aside all thoughts of what his next credit card statement would look like, Jeff dumped the truck with valet parking, grabbed his laptop bag, and hurried through the terminal. He regretted having to lock his weapon up in the glove compartment, but here was no time to file papers clearing him to bring it on the flight. Nonetheless, his federal agent ID kept anybody from questioning the fact that he was traveling to Hawaii with nothing more than a laptop, some files, a phone, a wallet and the clothes on his back. Before the stink of Nick's sweat was gone from Jeff's hands, he was in the plane. He typed a quick e-mail on his phone, letting SSA Whitfield know he was taking a couple of personal days, then sent a quick text to Ferris begging her to take care of Bisou, and shut down his phone just as the flight attended headed his way. He hoped like hell that he hadn't just left his dog to his co-worker in his will.

Even in business class, the flight was torture. Almost six hours in the air, six hours suspended between two places, unable to do anything concrete. He pulled out his file on the SAF and stared at the picture of Calvin DePew. If Jensen was anything other than okay, Jeff was going to see that DePew paid, one way or another. His hands ached from gripping the file so hard and he felt the woman seated next to him casting nervous glances in his direction. Jeff flashed an apologetic smile at her, though it didn't seem to do much good, and ordered a whiskey.

He closed his eyes and held the bitter alcohol in his mouth, swallowing it slowly and trying to let some of his tension drain away. It wouldn't do anybody any good if he was too nervous to get the job done. He spent the rest of the flight on his laptop, first poring over the satellite images, hoping to see something that just wasn't visible, and then playing Angry Birds, imagining himself taking down the structure of DePew's militia. If he had to be the big redbird catapulting himself into the middle of it to bring everything down on DePew's head, so be it.

In the end, getting to the militia's base turned out to be the easiest thing he'd done all day. From the airport, Jeff rented a car and drove to the docks at the shipping terminal. Jeff's gut instinct for which guys were working for the SAF was aided by the fact that there weren't a whole hell of a lot of white men in sight. Jeff strode across the cracked blacktop to where the likely suspects were preparing to load a large wooden crate onto a relatively small boat, not trying to look like anything other than what he was--a federal agent closing in on their collective asses.

He walked around the side of the crate, where its bulk would hide anything he did--or anything done to him--from the rest of the dock workers. "Hey, fellas," he said, flashing his badge and smiling like he wanted to be their new best friend. "Don't suppose you've seen any packages coming through here addressed to a little group of dickheads called the Sons of American Freedom?" When the first jolt of the taser hit him, he hoped like hell he was headed for the boat rather than the water.

As he regained consciousness, Jeff realized that he was in a vehicle moving on land now, not a boat. He was bound hand and foot, not gagged, but when he got his eyes open he knew why--the vehicle, a Jeep, was rumbling over a rough track through the middle of the rainforest, and there was nobody around to hear him shout. At least nobody who'd give a damn, which made it a good thing that Jeff didn't plan on causing any kind of fuss until he could see if Jensen was there and what his situation looked like. When they were still in the middle of nothing but trees and more trees, the Jeep ground to a halt and the man in the passenger seat came around to the back of the Jeep.

Jeff's hands were bound under his knees, giving him neither the flexibility nor the leverage to put up much of a fight. The man glared at Jeff, didn't speak, just wrapped a blindfold over Jeff's eyes, tied it behind his head, and got back in the front of the Jeep. _Must be close to showtime,_ Jeff thought.

~~~

Jensen didn't bother keeping his fury from showing on his face. As far as his supposed comrades-in-arms knew, he was Jason Donaldson, brother of Kevin Donaldson, who was "wrongly" accused of weapons charges, locked up thanks to the efforts of federal agents, and murdered in prison. Kevin Donaldson was real, the charges against him and his death in prison were both documented and easily researchable, as was the fact that he had a brother named Jason. What wasn't accessible on Google or in any public database was the fact that Jason Donaldson had burned his brain out with a truly remarkable combination and quantity of street drugs and was probably making pipe-cleaner sculptures in a facility somewhere in Tennessee.

There was no other surviving family, so Jensen was able to step into Jason's identity--a man driven in his hatred of the federal government by his brother's "unjust" imprisonment and untimely death. Add in the fact that the Donaldson family had fallen apart after both parents lost their factory jobs to overseas labor, and Jason was no great fan of foreigners either. Jensen turned himself into the perfect kind of dog to do DePew's bidding, and it worked like a charm. He hadn't quite worked his way to the inner circle of leadership, but he was close enough to know most of what was going on.

The move away from Arizona took him completely off-guard. He knew DePew had been working on a plan, something dramatic from the supplies that were ordered, the clandestine meetings away from any kind of windows. The best Jensen could guess was that something spooked him, gave him a hint that the feds were watching him. Jensen, along with the rest of the lower-level group members, was woken in the middle of the night, and with no moon the desert was utterly blank and dark. DePew and his second in command rushed everybody into two cargo vans, no explanations offered or available. Being separated from his network of FBI contacts, no matter how tenuous the connection had been, was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. This would make Jensen's career if it didn't kill him first.

He never imagined that Jeff would come after him, never imagined he would be so reckless, no matter what his reputation implied. The hell of it was, Jensen had _missed_ Jeff--not just the sex, though he certainly did miss that after eight months surrounded by jumpy homophobes. He missed Jeff's sense of humor and the sound of his voice and his stupid, sappy dog. When Toby and Aaron, the men DePew had manning the docks to keep their shipments from getting inspected, radioed that they were coming in with a Fed who'd been nosing around Jensen tried to convince himself it was Grace Park, the agent from the Honolulu office Jensen had managed to make contact with, briefly.

But of course Park was smart enough to keep from getting herself kidnapped on the docks in broad daylight. Jeff, on the other hand, had probably run into it headlong, and there was Jensen's fury again, boiling back up under the surface. He was no damsel in distress; he didn't need Jeff throwing himself into the dragon's mouth to save him.

Aaron yanked the blindfold off of Jeff's face and Jensen watched warily as he blinked in the rainforest's filtered sunlight. He looked straight at Jensen, just for half a second, and then switched his attention to DePew.

"Hey there, Calvin, heard you have quite the little top-secret operation going on here." Jeff's shit-eating grin was just the kind of thing that made DePew lose his temper.

"You shut your mouth," Jensen growled, trying to communicate to Jeff that really, he should actually shut up. "Filthy fucking Fed."

DePew looked at Toby and Aaron. "You two find any trace of more of his kind?"

"No, sir," Toby answered. "And the local Feds weren't expecting any friends visiting from the mainland, either."

" _Toby_ ," Calvin snapped, his voice full of warning, and Toby looked down. Just another clue that Jensen had been right not to get in full contact with the Honolulu field office. He trusted Park because no way would these guys be working with an Asian woman, and he wanted somebody in the Bureau to know where he was in case things went drastically south, but he'd convinced her to not document their meeting or report it to anybody, including anybody on the mainland. Jensen trusted everybody on his team implicitly and wished he could let them know he was okay, but he didn't trust that an e-mail or phone call wouldn't be intercepted.

"Since we seem to have a lone wolf here, why don't you go ahead and put him down, Donaldson? Get a little of your own back."

"With pleasure," Jensen sneered at Jeff, looking him up and down. "But I want to take my time. You know how much it hurts to be shanked, Fed? You know how long my brother bled out with his intestines in his hands while the fucking guards turned their backs?"

DePew looked at Jensen consideringly and then tilted his head toward the vast swatch of rainforest beyond the temporary compound's gate. "Go ahead, have some privacy. But don't go too far; I want to be able to hear him scream."

"No problem." Jensen swung his rifle down from his shoulder, jabbed it into Jeff's ribs, and then grabbed hold of the back of Jeff's jacket and shoved him forward. "Move it," he ordered, and Jeff ambled forward, not quite like a man on the way to his own execution, more like a man who just didn't give a damn.

As soon as they were out of immediate earshot of the group, Jensen whispered harshly, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Me? What the fuck is wrong with you? Running off to try to get killed by some wannabe terrorists just because I asked you to stay the fucking night?"

Jensen couldn't see Jeff's face, had to keep up the illusion of marching Jeff off to his death until they were out of observation range. "This isn't about you. This is the job. My job."

"The timing sure was curious."

And yes, the truth was that Jensen had heard a rumor about a big undercover op coming up, and after the shock of Jeff trying to make things serious he'd practically thrown himself at the Assistant Director's feet begging for the position. But it was all about his career, or so he managed to convince himself at the time. Now he couldn't even convince Jeff. Jensen looked behind him and realized that there was no way DePew or the rest of them would be able see them through the trees, even with the high-power binoculars.

He slung his rifle back over his shoulder and rounded on Jeff, shoving him into the side of a tree. "Do you know how lucky you are they didn't just kill you at the dock and hope that DePew didn't mind too much?" Jensen felt his chest heaving, the humid air heavy in his lungs, the mental image of Jeff's body dropping in the water too clear in his mind. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that you were in serious danger, completely off the grid, and I couldn't get anybody else to take the risk seriously enough to send a team to extract you. I couldn't just sit around and wait for bad news. And Jesus, Jensen, are they _starving_ you?"

"What?" Jensen looked at Jeff's chest, at the taser burns visible past the open collar of his shirt. He reached out and touched the wounds delicately. "You're lucky that stupid asshole didn't fry you by accident."

"I'm serious." Jeff's hand was on his face, the touch of his fingers on Jensen's cheek and jaw so familiar and so welcome. "You look like you're down twenty pounds."

"Oh, well, Calvin's a big believer in MREs." Jensen shook his head. "It's kind of hard to choke them down when you feel like somebody might have a gun to the back of your head at any given moment."

"Fuck, Jensen." Jeff moved his hand to the back of Jensen's neck and pulled him in closer, his other hand slipping under Jensen's jacket, under his shirt, until Jensen could feel those rough-edged calluses against his skin. "I'm so glad you're okay," he whispered into Jensen's ear.

"Damn you," Jensen whispered back, and then he kissed Jeff, slipping his tongue into Jeff's mouth while he tugged Jeff's shirt out of his pants and pushed his hands underneath the rumpled cotton, palms flat on Jeff's stomach, the strong swell of his chest. Jensen felt eight months of rarely having the privacy to even take advantage of his own hand crashing up against the fear and shock of seeing Jeff here, now, and he was hard, hot, grinding up against Jeff's hip as they kissed and groped each other like teenagers. He pushed one hand down past Jeff's waistband and wrapped his fingers around the familiar shape of Jeff's cock.

Jeff moaned, pushing into the touch, flicking his thumb across Jensen's nipple, and when Jensen groaned into his mouth and spilled all over Jensen's hand, Jensen pushed harder, rubbing his denim-covered cock against the ridge of Jeff's hipbone until he came in his pants like a teenager. Panting hard, Jensen leaned heavily against Jeff, the both of them balanced against the trunk of a tree.

"I wish," Jensen whispered as he got his breath back. "I wish you'd just held your goddamn horses and waited for me to take care of this. There's a mole in the Bureau somewhere, in LA or Honolulu or both, I'm about 95% sure. I managed to slip away from DePew long enough to make contact with an agent here, but she had to keep it buttoned down. I have a satellite phone buried under a tree about a mile from here, but I didn't know what DePew's plan was until today."

"His plan?"

Jensen opened his mouth to explain, when he heard Calvin's voice bellowing for him. "Donaldson? What the hell are you doing to that Fed? Wrap it up and get back here."

"Fuck," Jensen whispered, then he turned away from Jeff to yell back toward the compound. "I'm just about done with him!" Turning back to Jeff, he whispered again. "We gotta go. I know him, he's on his way out here right now." He grabbed Jeff's bicep and took off running. Jeff fell into step behind him and then the world was just a blur of green, all of his focus narrowed in on moving as swiftly as possible without making a wrong step that would send him sprawling and waste precious time.

When Jensen saw the tree he'd marked, he skidded to a stop, throwing himself to the ground to dig under the leaf litter and loose soil to grab the sat phone in its zip-lock bag. Back on his feet, he saw that Jeff was keeping watch. He nodded at Jeff, and then they were both running again. Jensen needed to get more space between them and the compound before he could take the time to make a phone call. A large rock formation was ahead and Jensen ducked behind it, dropping down to sit, his heart racing out of control. Jeff knelt down next to him and then turned around, keeping watch around the side of the rock.

With shaking fingers, Jensen dialed the cell number Agent Park had given him.

"Hello?" she answered immediately, her voice tense and wary.

"It's Ackles. Look, we have a fuck-up on top of a complication here. We just got briefed this morning; DePew's plan is to set something off at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. I don't know the specifics, but knowing him it's not going to be a couple of firecrackers. He was planning to do it this coming weekend, but now one of my colleagues from the mainland had the brilliant idea to drop in on us unannounced, so I wouldn't be surprised if he moved up that timetable."

"Shit, let me call the PD, get them to close off the memorial, send a bomb team over there."

"Perfect. But, uh, Agent Morgan and I are out here in the middle of the rainforest with DePew looking for us. A little help would be awesome." Jensen read their coordinates off to Agent Park.

"I assume it's okay with you if I bring other agents in on this now? I know you’re worried about a mole, but I can't handle both ends of this on my own."

Jensen looked at the rainforest around them. He didn't think they were _too_ many miles from a real road, but he had no idea if they could get there before DePew and the others ran them down. "At this point, I don't think we have anything left to lose. I'll keep the phone on so you can get somebody tracking our location."

"We'll get support to you as soon as possible."

Jensen disconnected the call and tucked the phone into one of the oversize pockets on the front of his jacket. "I assume you heard all that," he said to Jeff's back.

"Oh, yeah." Jeff looked over his shoulder, and his face was tense even as he joked, "You sure do know how to pick 'em."

"You think we should stay here with this sad excuse for cover or keep running?"

"I'm not really crazy about the idea of running headlong through the jungle--"

"Rainforest," Jensen interjected.

"Whatever. I'd rather not run through it with no idea where I'm headed. I say we hold our position until there's a good reason to do otherwise."

Back to back, they kept watch, settling into stillness. Jensen listened to the sounds of the rainforest, which had become almost familiar over the past few weeks. When he heard the first crunch of human footsteps, he nudged Jeff with his elbow. If it was FBI or PD approaching, they'd announce themselves. One breath, two, and when no announcement came Jensen and Jeff both muttered, "shit," under their breath simultaneously and took off, moving in a crouch until they were well past the cover of the rock formation, and then running.

Jensen was grateful for the hours spent running the track at Quantico, grateful for all the evenings spent running on treadmills and ellipticals. For all that he'd dropped some weight while undercover, he hadn't let himself lose his fitness. And Jeff--Jeff might've had a dozen years on Jensen, but he was keeping pace just as easily as he had that day back on the track at the academy.

Then there were footsteps approaching again, more of them, and seemingly from all directions. Loud announcements of "FBI!" and "Police!" came from one direction, angry incoherent shouts from the other direction. Jensen stumbled to a stop then threw himself down on the ground as he heard the first shots fired. He tried to drag Jeff down with him, but Jeff fell awkwardly, and Jensen looked over to see him grabbing at his knee, his hands red with blood.

Jensen crawled over and pushed Jeff's hands away. He stuck his fingers into the ragged hole in Jeff's pants ( _black, blacker already with blood_ ) and ripped them wide open. The bullet wound was at the top of Jeff's knee, and it was bleeding heavily, a thick flow that turned Jensen's stomach. Shaking his head, he pulled off his jacket and folded it up, pressed it tight over the wound. Jeff cried out sharply, his back arching up from the ground, and through a haze Jensen could vaguely hear the sound of more gunfire.

"Jeff? Jeff?" Jensen needed both hands to keep his jacket ( _dampness already soaking through to his hands, bad, bad_ ) tight around Jeff's knee, but he wanted so badly to touch Jeff's face. Jeff was pale, his usual color washed out, and Jensen could tell that he was breathing but he couldn't see his eyes, couldn't tell if he was still awake, still with Jensen. "Stay with me, Jeff. I need you, stay with me." He only had two hands, he couldn't--

Then there were people around him, pushing him out of the way, and he reached for the backup weapon strapped to his leg before he realized they were paramedics. They had Jeff's jacket off already, and one of them was putting an IV in his arm, squeezing the bag of fluid. The wind picked up, loud noise above, and Jensen looked up to see a helicopter hovering above a break in the trees. Before Jensen could really understand what was happening, a basket was dropped and Jeff was strapped in and pulled up, away from Jensen. Away.

He knelt on the ground with his blood-soaked jacket in his hands, no idea what else was going on, no idea if DePew or any other the other men were captured or dead or escaped into the rainforest, no idea if the plot to bomb the memorial was thwarted. All he cared about, as his ears buzzed with too many voices, was that Jeff had to be okay.

~~~

When Jeff woke up, bright, clear morning light filled his hospital room, and Jensen was next to him, halfway curled up in an aqua-colored vinyl recliner. The light brought out the red in his hair. Even asleep, he looked tired, the story of so many months undercover told in the lines around his eyes, the raw edge of not enough flesh over the bones of his face. Jeff thought about his kitchen back home, the meals he could cook that would put a hint of roundness back to Jensen's face, the hours in bed that would smooth out the exhaustion on his face.

With a shake of his head, he squelched the thought. Jensen had run so hard from the idea of any kind of life with Jeff that he'd ended up neck-deep in this mess in the first place. Words spoken in the heat of the moment, Jeff's blood on his face, panic in his eyes--they probably didn't mean anything in the light of day. Jeff turned away from Jensen and looked out the window. He could just make out the tops of some palm trees, out past the parking lot. The bulge of bandages under the blanket didn't matter. His knee was wrecked; he'd seen that much, felt that much, before he passed out. The pain was there, lurking under a thick layer of pain meds, and Jeff was just as happy to leave it there.

"Hey." Jensen's sleep-rough voice startled Jeff. "Damn, I meant to be awake when you woke up."

Jeff looked back over at Jensen, blinking away the afterimages of sunlight filling his eyes. "How long was I out?"

"Since the surgery yesterday, pretty much. The nurse said you halfway woke up a couple times, but I was at the field office." Jensen grimaced.

"Yeah, how'd that go?"

"Fuck it, it was fine. Don't you want to know how your goddamn leg is?"

"I'm guessing it's fubar. I saw that shot, right through my knee; I'm not an idiot."

Jensen opened his mouth, but Jeff cut him off. "My knee is fubar, but you're alive. I'm alive. You think I'm worried about living with a limp, working a desk job? In case you don't remember, I've been wanting to get out of this hamster wheel for a while now. You have any information for me that's going to make things any different?"

Jensen tilted his head to the side, lifted his shoulders in a tiny shrug. "Not really. Course, they weren't exactly giving us all the details."

"I'm sure I'll hear way more than I want whenever the doctor deigns to make rounds. Maybe it's the drugs, but when I think about my career with the Bureau being over...I just can't find my give-a-damn."

Jensen didn't say anything, just stared out the window, probably trying to make out those same palm trees, the glint of water near the horizon. "I do remember, you know, that conversation we had. The last one at your place. I've thought about it during this whole thing, a time or two or--" Jensen rubbed his hand over his face, palm scraping over stubble. "Or a hundred or so. You asked me for something then, and I wasn't ready."

"Yeah, I think that's pretty clear."

Jensen looked back at Jeff, his eyes sober, serious. "I'm ready now. If you still want it, want me, I'm ready."

Tears prickled at the corners of Jeff's eyes, and he blamed the drugs for lowering his defenses. "That's, um. That's...yeah." He felt Jensen's warm fingers on his own as Jensen took his hand.

"We don't have to deal with it right now. Go back to sleep if you want. I'm just gonna hang out, maybe catch a nap myself."

"They don't need you at the field office?"

"I was debriefed for nine hours yesterday. As of this morning, I'm on leave. A long, long leave, considering how much vacation time I have saved up."

"How convenient that we're in Hawaii."

"Yeah, I worked it out that way on purpose," Jensen smirked.

Jeff let his eyes slip closed. The sunlight made warm red patterns as it shone through his eyelids, and he watched them as he drifted off to sleep, Jensen's hand still securely in his own.

~~~

 **Two months later**

Jensen stood on the beach with his feet just inside the tide line, the water lapping up over his ankles and then back, surge and retreat, as he looked out toward the blue horizon. The first month he'd been in Hawaii he hadn't had any time to appreciate the beauty. He'd been too busy trying to stay undercover, stay alive, keep a lot of other people alive, too. And then for weeks after that the majority of his attention was on Jeff, first in the hospital and then in the little one-floor cottage Jensen found for them to rent. The beach was right outside their door, but getting Jeff down the three steps from the front porch was a torment reserved only for doctor's appointments, and Jensen didn't feel much like going out on his own.

All the years Jensen had dreamed of going undercover, playing the big game, he'd never imagined how exhausting it would be, how much the aftermath would make him want to run to safety and stay there. For the first week after Jeff was discharged from the hospital, Jensen slept almost as much as Jeff did, waking when the alarms he'd set on his phone alerted him it was time for medication or food. The cottage had two bedrooms, one with a sprawling California king bed, the other with a double that looked minuscule in comparison. When Jeff was still too out of it on pain meds to make any real decisions, Jensen thought he should probably bunk in the smaller bedroom, given that he was the one who'd left Jeff's bed and in such a dramatic fashion.

But it was so much easier to just pass out on the big bed, close enough that he'd wake up if Jeff needed anything, far enough away that he wouldn't accidentally hurt Jeff's leg. Ten days into their stay at the cabin, Jensen was frustrated with Jeff, who was suddenly cranky and snappish. When Jeff woke up in the middle of the night, burning with a sudden fever and struggling with the smothering covers, it shook them both up. Jensen thought about calling an ambulance, but he knew they wouldn't let him ride along and he didn't think that either of them needed that. He dragged Jeff out to the rental car himself and raced to the emergency room through the thankfully-light nighttime traffic.

They had to stay in the ER for almost twelve hours, but Jeff didn't have to be admitted. The doctor flooded him with fluids and fever-reducers and antibiotics, and when the tests came back they learned that it was just a common infection in the wound. The knowledge that it wasn't MRSA or any of the other nasty superbugs and that Jeff wouldn't need more surgery hit Jensen with a wave of relief, and he put his head down on the side of Jeff's gurney and just breathed and breathed and breathed.

The afternoon was waning by the time they got back to the cottage with a new prescription and instructions to keep a close eye on Jeff's temperature over the next week until the antibiotics were finished. Jeff was too exhausted and shaky to shower, even with the cast cover and the plastic stool, but he was clearly feeling sticky and uncomfortable from the fever-sweat so Jensen led him into the generously-sized bathroom and sat him down on the closed toilet lid.

He gently pulled Jeff's t-shirt over his head and then, with a soft, soapy washcloth he washed the sweat and lingering hospital smell from Jeff's uninjured leg. He scrubbed lightly through the hair on Jeff's chest and then smoothed the washcloth over the broad plain of his back. He squeezed out the washcloth and ran it under cool water and slowly moved it over Jeff's face and neck, trying to absorb some of the heat that lingered, even though Jeff's temperature had fallen to only a low fever.

Jeff's eyes stayed closed the whole time, and Jensen would've thought he was asleep if not for the fact that he was holding himself upright. When Jensen massaged the wet cloth through Jeff's hair, Jeff tilted his head back into the gentle pressure and Jensen felt something swell inside his chest. He bent down and pressed a closed-mouth kiss to Jeff's lips.

"Mmmm," Jeff hummed, opening his eyes to sleepy slits.

"I love you," Jensen said, almost choking on the words. He'd never said those words to a man before, not to Matt back in Dallas and not to Kevin all those years ago in college. Jeff answered with a slow, groggy smile and then leaned forward, his head a heavy weight against Jensen's sternum. Not exactly the response Jensen would've ever imagined to saying those words, but he'd take it.

The low-level fever lingered for a couple of days, but after that Jeff improved quickly, his pain level low enough to stay off the hard stuff. Without so many drugs in his system, Jeff grew antsy at the confinement. Their daily schedule grew to include cooking--first with Jensen doing all the work while Jeff gave instructions from the recliner Jensen had pulled close to the kitchen and then with Jeff hobbling around, perching on a stool to do some of the work, but still bossing Jensen around and clearly enjoying it.

They took notice of the world outside as well, and started sitting on the porch watching the waves then progressed to laboriously moving down the stairs and across the loose sand to sit just out of reach of the waves on wooden recliners that came with the cottage. Jensen hadn't realized how much the sound of the waves had become the lullaby for his restful sleep, but there was something wonderfully decadent about drowsing in the sunshine with the salt smell in his nose and the crash of the waves pushing any kind of complicated thoughts out of his head. He could reach across the narrow divide and put his hand on Jeff's arm and know that everything was okay.

By the time Jeff was released from the hospital the first time, the FBI's case against the Sons of American Freedom was sewn up. Four explosive devices had been found on the underside of the USS Arizona Memorial, and the local bomb squad had been able to remove and disarm them without incident. Clear evidence led back to the SAF, and the militia members who'd survived the shoot-out in the woods had all been indicted on a series of charges and locked up without bail pending trial. Along with the physical evidence, Jensen's testimony made it certain that none of them would see the outside of a federal prison for many, many years. Also destined for a long stay behind bars was the agent in the LA office who'd been leaking information to DePew.

DePew had died in the rainforest; shot by Agent Park while he had his rifle trained on Jensen's head. Jensen hadn't known, hadn't had any clue until after his debriefing. The hours between Jeff being shot and the doctor coming out to explain that Jeff had made it through surgery and would most likely recover were a blur. The thing he remembered clearest was his absolute refusal to leave the hospital for his debriefing until he knew if Jeff would be okay. The debriefing was a blur as well, but one of irritation and boredom and exhaustion rather than shock and grief and the surprising, overwhelming need for Jeff to survive.

After eight weeks recuperating in Hawaii, Jeff was ready to fly home, missing his dog even though Agent Ferris reported that they were having a good time together. Jensen was just about ready to go back to work, and he'd decided to stay in the Bureau and return to the Domestic Terrorism team, but he knew he'd never take another undercover assignment. He was done with taking the big risks now that he had somebody he wanted to spend the future with. What had felt like a distraction back in Dallas was now a primary focus, and Jensen found himself strangely okay with that.

The Bureau couldn't seem to decide between firing Jeff and promoting him, but in the end Jeff had decided to take early retirement. He had interviews set up with three different private sector companies for after they got back to LA. He'd graduated from a cast to a brace on his knee, and his physical therapist thought that if he kept working on it he might eventually get the limp down to nearly undetectable.

When the cast came off, Jeff's leg was strangely weak and pale, but he could get comfortable more easily and maneuver around better. That night, Jensen had climbed on top of Jeff in bed and ridden him slow and steady until they were both exhausted and strung out, coming all over each other and dropping off to sleep in the sweaty mess of bed linens.

As Jensen stood looking out at the water, he didn't notice that Jeff had limped up behind him until he felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," Jeff said, his voice gentle, "something wrong?"

"Not at all." Jensen turned to look at Jeff and couldn't help smiling. "You know, we have less than two days left here, and I've got kind of a crazy idea."

"If you want to take one of those zip-line tours, you can do it yourself," Jeff smirked.

Jensen fingered the box in his pocket and then drew it out. "Will you--it's not exactly marriage, but they're doing civil unions here now. Who knows how long we'll have to wait to do it for real at home, but will you--"

Jeff touched his hand to Jensen's lips, gently stopping him from babbling. "You want to get married?"

"Yes," Jensen whispered. He flipped open the box to show Jeff the ring he'd picked up while running errands during Jeff's PT appointment. It was white gold, etched with a gentle pattern of lapping waves.

"Oh God, Jensen." Jeff's hand covered his own mouth then, and he looked away, his eyes suspiciously bright. "Yeah. Yes."

Once the decision was made, there was no time to waste. They changed into nicer clothes and hurried to the Department of Health to fill out the paperwork before they closed. Afterward, Jeff insisted on stopping to buy Jensen a ring to match his own. As they drove back to the cottage, newly joined in civil union, they talked about having some kind of a ceremony back in LA in a few months so that their families wouldn't kill them.

The sun was setting by the time they got back, and without even discussing it they both kicked off their shoes and socks and walked out to the water's edge. That moment, exchanging rings under the bright pink sunset with no witnesses, no words, just the sound of the waves and seabirds, was the only ceremony Jensen cared about.

Hand-in-hand they walked back to the cottage, steadying each other as they crossed the darkening expanse of sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To view the story with art, please view it or download the PDF [on Livejournal](http://embroiderama.livejournal.com/428408.html). This work was inspired by the work of mysticwaters - [view her art masterpost.](http://mysticwaters.livejournal.com/125475.html)


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